Fighting For Gay Rights Accomplished Nothing

I just took another glance at this comic about gay rights and political progress a friend of mine gave me. At the time, I said I didn't buy it because Americans can't turn to outright genocidal Nazism. That kind of thing requires a major childrearing change. The "banality of evil" is as much bullshit as all the pro-Gaia anti-human anti-industrialism garbage - it's the complete 180 degree opposite of the truth.

So what childrearing change has there been? Well, a big change produced the 1968 generation. And it's been 42 years since 1968 now. The 1968ers were > 15 years old, add 42 means they're now above 57. So basically, everyone now alive in modern countries either participated in 1968 or were parents of those who participated. Or like Sarkozy, were nutball fascists who wanted to counter-participate in 1968 but were grounded.

Another telling point is PACS (registered union) which is very popular in France. Introduced as an alternative to legalizing same sex marriage, it's a popular form of easy-in easy-out strictly consensual marriage lite. That kind of social arrangement would have been unimaginable to the 1950s ('no divorce, ever!') generation. Yet it was introduced as a sop, as something completely uncontroversial.

What do we learn from this? That none of the politicking and rallies and all that other crap mattered much. It was all going to happen anyways. All the "fighting" was the noisy vanguard of an inexorable tide of social change. The fighting for gay rights wasn't a cause of the acceptance of gay rights. It was an epiphenomenon, a mere side-effect of much deeper and more meaningful social change about all kinds of sexual freedom.

There's a lesson in this. And the lesson is that putting all of your effort, all of your energy, your entire life even, into fighting for something without any understanding or comprehension of social forces or social systems or psychology results precisely in you totally wasting your life. You can't change the world by putting your shoulder against a brick wall. You need to find the fulcrum point to stick your lever in.

You're never going to achieve any of your goals by being a mindless brainwashed grunt such as Greenpeace is so fond of. But a single guy like Robert McFarland in Boulder, Colorado can achieve a local revolution.